© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
GIVEN OPPOSITION unity, the need to accommodate allies as well as anti-incumbency against some of the leaders, the Uttar Pradesh BJP is considering denying tickets to nearly one-fourth of its sitting MPs in the state, for next year’s Lok Sabha polls.
BJP sources said these MPs, including some Union ministers, and mostly belonging to western and eastern UP, could be replaced with leaders currently part of the organisation, a reshuffle that the party is also considering in other states.
Sources said leaders who have crossed the unofficial 75 age limit, or have not been able to develop a connect with the masses and party workers, and have been ineffectual in their constituencies would be among the names who might be dropped. According to a senior BJP leader, some of those likely to face the axe are MPs who defeated high-profile Opposition candidates in 2019 but are since seen to have run into controversy and are not very popular with voters.
A list of such MPs has reportedly already been prepared and would be shared with the Central leadership when the time comes for candidate selection. A separate list is said to be ready of sitting MLAs as well as ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government who might be considered for Lok Sabha tickets to maintain social balancing.
A senior BJP leader said: “A few MPs who are part of the Union Cabinet and may not get Lok Sabha tickets may be given Rajya Sabha seats later.”
There are 11 BJP MPs from UP who are part of the Union Council of Ministers – including Rajnath Singh (Lucknow), Smriti Irani (Amethi), Mahendra Nath Pandey (Chandauli), General (retd) V K Singh (Ghaziabad), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur), Sanjeev Kumar Baliyan (Muzaffarnagar), Pankaj Chaudhary (Maharajganj), S P Singh Baghel (Agra), Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma (Jalaun), Kaushal Kishore (Mohanlalganj) and Ajay Kumar Mishra ‘Teni’ (Kheri).
Apart from this, a few candidates who contested but lost in 2019 may not get tickets. Some of the seats from where the BJP lost were Shrawasti, Ghazipur, Ghosi, Lalganj and Mainpuri.
For next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is expected to forge an alliance with the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party of Om Prakash Rajbhar and give at least one seat to it. Likewise, the party is considering giving seats to existing ally Nishad Party. As for Jayant Chowdhury-led RLD, the party’s door is reportedly not closed. In 2019, the BJP had won 62 of the 80 seats and its ally Apna Dal (S) another two.
The factors that would go into selecting new names would be local social factors as well as the candidates fielded by Opposition parties.
To judge the performance of the MPs, the party has taken into consideration the feedback collected on them, including from booth-level workers, particularly about their participation in party programmes. One major programme in which their participation is being looked at is the Maha Jansampark Abhiyan, on since June, as part of which BJP leaders have been directed to go to people and talk to them about the Modi government’s schemes.
A BJP leader said: “There has been very close monitoring of each MP. It has also been analysed how much of their MPLAD funds they have spent and under what heads. There are reports about some MPs not taking interest in the party’s voter outreach activities, with the crowds in their rallies poor.”
The leader added that the BJP has not taken a kind view of their confidence about winning on the basis of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name alone. “The party does not want to take a chance and hence fresh faces will be fielded to override the anti-incumbency factor and to give new hope to voters.”
The final decision will be taken by the Central leadership, which will also take into account findings of survey agencies. Their surveys will give an idea of the position of the BJP vis-a-vis Opposition parties on the ground, the political and other issues dominant in a constituency, and the image of the local MP and possible replacement candidates.
UP is a crucial state for any party hoping to win the Lok Sabha elections as it elects 80 MPs — the maximum for a state in the country. In 2019, the BJP had won 62 of the 80 seats and its ally Apna Dal (S) another two. The BSP and Samajwadi Party contested together, with the BSP winning 10 seats and the SP five. The Congress won only the Rae Bareli seat, from where Sonia Gandhi was contesting, with even Rahul Gandhi losing in Amethi to the BJP’s Smriti Irani.
For next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is expected to forge an alliance with the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party of Om Prakash Rajbhar and give at least one seat to it. Likewise, the party is considering giving seats to existing ally Nishad Party.
As for Jayant Chowdhury-led RLD, the door is reportedly not closed. “If an alliance is formed with the RLD for western UP, the BJP may replace Jat MPs in some seats with non-Jat candidates, with the calculation that the candidate will bring votes of his own caste, to add to the Jat support that will come from an alliance with the RLD,” a BJP leader said.
